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In the year 1970 there was a terrible earthquake in Peru, my home country, in which around 70,000 people died. At that time I was 17 years old and lived in Lima, the capital of Peru. The epicenter of the quake was in the northeast, in the cordillera of the Andes above the altitude of 10,000 feet (3000 meters), where very tall mountains were forever covered in snow and where there were some isolated towns.

Soon after the disaster there was a general call for volunteers to come and help the thousands of victims that now were without homes or food, and in many cases were dead or trapped alive in the debris.

I was a teenager thirsty for adventure, and together with three friends we decided to answer the call to help and went to the disaster zone. We went by foot almost the entire time in the mountainous area, since the roads were destroyed or in bad condition and were impassible for motorized vehicles, since the geography is very rugged and the climate inhospitable.

Once at our destination, we began our work of helping people to rebuild their homes, remove the debris, etc.

When it was time for us to leave, the roads were still closed, but in any case we decided to leave and to leave on foot, a bold decision that would later give us a huge scare and much suffering.

We put on our backpacks and began the crossing of these mountains, which are very similar to the Alps with much snow and precipices, almost no vegetation, and very cold.

Some neighbors in the town had told us that it wasn’t going to rain, that the weather was going to be more or less good, wrong!! From one moment to the next the sky darkened and a ferocious storm began, with thunder and lightning that came down against the mountains around us. We began to panic, since we were basically without protection, dead with cold, and without adequate equipment for this kind of weather or for emergencies.

Within a few seconds we were soaked with watered and a wind blew furiously in our faces. The situation was indescribable, it felt like a horror movie. The cold was terrible and we didn’t have a place or shelter in which to protect ourselves. We tried to hug each other and curl up together but it wasn’t much help. I felt like I was going to die and I’m sure that my friends felt the same. Nobody spoke, we just shivered.

At some point I began to feel faint, thinking that the end had arrived, and under my breath I made a prayer to commend myself to God, and upon finishing, what a surprise!! I saw light from a lantern lighting up our faces. They were 3 men dressed as mountaineers with their appropriate and adequate equipment. They found us by chance and helped us. I still remember in the middle of that drama and pain feeling the happiness and excitement that surely everyone who is rescued must feel.

Those men put up a small tent as soon as they found us to give us a temporary shelter, although the weather was still very bad. They covered us with blankets and gave us hot drinks. I will always be thankful to those anonymous men who with their solidarity for others saved our lives.

I never heard from them again, and now after more than 40 years I tell this story for the first time.

On March 21st at 6pm the DWC of Mountain View there was a film screening of the movie “A Better Life”, starring the Mexican actor Damian and other hispanic artists. This drama talks about the struggle of illegal immigrants in the United States and focuses on the life of a Mexican gardener, an honorable and hard-working man who lives with his adolescent son who he tries to protect from the gangs in the public schools and on the street in the poorer neighborhoods of L.A. His boy is also noble and honest but is about to be recruited by a gang. It turns out that the gardener that originally was a day worker and waited for employment on a street corner with other workers gets the opportunity to buy a truck and so begins his own landscaping business and therefore can help his family, especially his son, who is a little rebellous and distant. A few days after buying the vehicle and while he was working high in a tree, his disloyal assistant steals his truck. In his despair, anxious about losing his work vehicle and with the help of his son, he uses violent and dramatic means to recover his truck instead of reporting the theft. (Personally, I don’t support his methods but I do understand his desperation.) The move is very costly, since he is caught fleeing the scene by the police, who take him to jail for his immediate processing for deportation.

In general, this movie portrays the harsh reality of our Latino community, especially for those that don’t have the necessary documentation to work and live in this country. In many cases they are deprived of their civil rights and unprotected by the laws, including some politicans and authorities that propose, promote and back anti-immigrant laws and programs. For example, “Secure Communities” where the police, taking advantage of racial profiling, stop people to ask for documentation (a racist and discriminatory act in my opinion) just like what happened to the gardener in the movie when he recovers his vehicle.

In summary, I think that in order to solve these problems there needs to be a comprehensive Migration Reform as soon as possible in order to avoid further abuse against immigrants, especially for those from the Latino community that come to this country only to work honorably, help their families and contribute to the social and economic growth of this great country.

When I was a child, my mother used to take me and my siblings to church every Sunday, she was very Catholic and raised us to be good Christians and she would tell us that if we didn’t go, it was a mortal sin and we would be condemned to Hell for all of eternity(!?). I, in particular, hated Sundays. First of all, I had to get up really early, which I did begrudgingly. “What? Isn’t Sunday supposed to be a day of rest after a trying week at school?” …Well, after I had taken a quick shower, as everyone else in the house needed the bathroom and would knock insistently on the door. “HURRY UP!” …”I’m going, I’m going” It was the same old routine, after breakfast I put on clean clothes, with polished shoes and combed hair.

Once inside the church, the eye contact with other people began–especially with the girls my age, because the truth is that the boys and young men of my generation used church events to flirt or hook up with a girl. In those times, they were particularly beautiful, with their dresses all clean and neat, their heads covered by a veil so that they looked like the Virgin Mary. This was because at that time it was required that women cover their heads upon entering a “sacred place.”

Later on in my youth I stopped going to church and only returned in order to marry my first wife. We were very young. She was almost 16 years old and I was 19 years old. I remember that the priest that was going to marry us, when he saw us he said ironically, “Have the children come forward to have their first communion,” referencing our dress and youth. As it was and is the custom of the Catholic Church that children around the age of 10 have their first communion.

Years passed and as the human beings that we are, our ideas and ways of thinking change. I left Catholicism, but in any case I think that it was an experience that has helped me in life.

When I arrived in Japan during the 90s, one of my medium term goals was to save enough money to buy a car and in that way be able to get to my work easily—even though the subway system there is one of the best in the world.

But when the time to buy a car arrived, what a surprise! It hadn’t occurred to me that Japan would have its own special conventions around driving. First of all one drives on the left side, while the steering wheel is on the right, something that I wasn’t used to at all… Well, in any case I bought the car, and it was on to learning once again how to drive, now in this new country! But truth is that it isn’t difficult at all. It’s all about accustoming oneself, and in a few days or a bit more one is already ready.

One of the main problems caused by not having accustomed oneself is the instinct of looking to the right, even though you have to turn or move yourself to the left. The right and left turn signals on the dashboard are on the other side, that is, if you want to turn left or right you turn on the windshield wipers. It’s very funny but you soon get used to doing it correctly. Similarly the gear stick is of course on the other side. And also other small details like looking for the seatbelt on the other side of the seat, etc.

As you know, just like in Japan one also drives on the left in England. But really there are many countries all over the world where they drive on that side, in particular in the ex-colonies of England, like India, Hong Kong, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Pakistan, etc, several African countries and some Caribbean islands. One item of interest here is the case of the Bahamas, where I had the opportunity to travel several years ago. There they drive on the left in the “English” style as an ex-colony of England, but it is very common to see cars with the steering wheel on the left side in the “American” style. I think that it’s easier and cheaper to import used cars from the US due to its proximity to these islands.

Why have the steering wheel on the left side? There is a very interesting explanation for this, especially in the case of England. It’s a custom from olden times, when there still weren’t cars. Horseriders and carriages rode on that side to be able to defend themselves with a sword or whip in the case that they were attacked. This seems like a respectable and valid theory to me, of course one must assume that most people are right-handed. Who knows…!

International Women’s Day is celebrated every year on March 8th. This holiday was officially established in 1977 by the United Nations, and is celebrated in almost all countries around the world.

Throughout history there have always been women’s rights movements, like the fight for gender equality, whether that be in the social sphere like the right to vote, to education, etc; in the labor sphere, equal pay for equal work, etc; also in the family sphere, particularly against physical and psychological abuse of women in the home, which is deeply entrenched in third world countries and especially in our Latino communities.

In recent year there has been much progress and many triumphs around these demands, but still more work is needed. This is why we must reiterate our commitment to and solidarity with our women, especially with women workers and fighters.

This past week was very busy for me and my fellow workers. Valentine’s Day was getting closer, and together with the music teacher, Christine, and the executive director of the Day Worker Center, Sra. Maria, we went all out in putting together an activity: a lunch and musical performance in which such songs as “The Last Kiss”, “As Tears Go By”, “Guantanamera”, “La Bamba”, etc would be included. We had to rehearse these very hard as a musical group, which was in some moments stressful. The day finally arrived, February 14th. The banquet was prepared at 12pm, and upon finishing lunch, it was time for the musical numbers we had prepared. I think it was an okay performance, but it didn’t end there. That same night we had our trial by fire, play at the prestigious restaurant of Los Charros in Mountain View, CA. I think that there we were more determined, with more confidence, no nerves, and we gave a good performance. So good that we did three rounds of songs. It was a pleasant experience especially for me, since I hadn’t played guitar for more than 30 years, but I think everything went well.

On January 28th, a big step was taken towards the reinstatement of civil rights, especially for the latin community. On this day, a large group met in the cathedral in San Francisco, California. Approximately 2,000 people came from different pro-immigration organizations and groups that defend civil rights throughout the Bay Area such as PICO-PIA (People Improving Communities through Organizing/Peninsula Interfaith Action).

This meeting was to protest the federal program called S-COMM “Secure Communities” that was approved by the state of California. With its subtle name it’s actually an openly anti-immigration program used by ICE to deport and separate families from our community. The program works like this: the local police take advantage of racial profiling to ask for documentation from people to verify their legal status and check if they are undocumented. Then they would be detained by ICE and begin the immediate process of deportation, an injust and cruel response.

To my great suprise, many religious from San Francisco like the Archbishop Niederauer supported our just cause and our voices of protest were heard and will continue to be heard. !!!!SEGUIMOS EN LA LUCHA!!!!